


There's No Place Like Home

by Fjm



Category: Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 07:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11595450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fjm/pseuds/Fjm





	There's No Place Like Home

It really had been a mistake to marry. I pondered this as I promenaded the decks on the voyage home, daily observing the sailors as they moved around the ship adjusting this and that. I had plenty of time to watch and observe. I was alone. Isabelle was in Buenos Aires.  
Oh, I had genuinely thought myself in love with Isabelle! She was a charming girl. A beautiful voice. A sweet smile. And she thought me terribly clever. That last had, I think, over whelmed me, for I am not a clever man, and my best friend and companion of many years, Hercules Poirot, had rarely let me forget it.  
But eight years of matrimony... I tried. I really did try. Our daughter Ruth was, after all, visible evidence that I had tried. But I could hear Poirot’s voice in my head. “Really, Hastings?” A wave of guilt passed over me.  
There had been distractions of course, for both of us. Worshiping a woman, thinking she is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen, is, it seems, not enough. Once it had become clear to Isabelle that my love for her was rather more .,. platonic… than she had expected, she had quickly sought other company. Not long after, so had I. But it was never quite enough. I missed my friend.  
The deck was lonely. On my third turn I was greeted by the purser. Did I want anything? Could he introduce me to anyone? He had the look in his eye I recognised. I contemplated it, but settled instead for a whisky.  
I spent the last two days and nights in similar fashion. Promenading during the day. Playing cards in the evening. Watching the sailors and the sea in the evening. All the time assailed by guilt for what I left behind, and expectation for what I hoped, desperately hoped, might be waiting for me… I could not help myself, it always slipped into my mind… at home.  
When we docked at Southampton, I scanned the shore eagerly. He was not there. The disappointment was crashing. His letter has said he was ‘making arrangements’. I disembarked feeling as lonely and abandoned as had Isabelle the first time I had absented myself. I felt a stabbing ache once again for my failure and the hurt it had brought.  
“Captain Hastings?” There was a man at my shoulder in a chaffeur’s uniform, neat black cap, dark hair and slender, with dark blue eyes.  
“Captain Hastings? I am to drive you to London. You are expected.”  
My heart leapt. I felt myself flush as I had always been wont to do whenever I had received some accolade from my friend. I allowed myself to be led aside and settled in the back of a discreet black sedan for the four hour drive to watch the countryside go by. My luggage would follow later. I dozed. When I woke we were in the outskirts of London. My beloved London. I had missed it as much as I had missed him. It was still dirty, and grey and the Depression meant there were men loitering in the streets everywhere you looked, but it was still London.  
As we turned into Kensington, my nervousness grew. I had been ignoring it. Things would not be the same. They could not be the same. Was there truly anything for me to return to?  
The car pulled up in front of the modernist apartment that was oh, so familiar to me, and I was handed out by the driver. The touch of his hand recalled me to myself and I straightened my tie, braced my shoulders and nodded to the concierge as he opened the door. The two flights up to the apartment were the last obstacle. I climbed with a firmness I did not feel. I stood in front of the door…  
And I could not do it. I could not ring the bell. What if I were mistaken? What if this was all a terrible mistake and Hercule Poirot’s kindness to me in the past, just that, kindness? I was paralysed.

The door opened. He stood there, neat, prim, but with that twinkle in his eye I had never been able to resist. The ends of his moustache turned up as he smiled  
“Ah, Hastings! You are home. I had received the call from the Concierge telling me you had begun the stairs. You will be wanting your tea.”  
And my friend drew me into our home, kissed me either side of my face and without hesitation, placed one third, firm kiss on my mouth.


End file.
